After completing a half dozen Project 365s in a row, last year I decided that I needed a break. 2017 was “The Year with a Project 365” and although it was quite a relief to remove the daily burden from my life, I have to admit . . . I missed it. There was an empty hole sort of feeling and I spent the last six months eager for the New Year to arrive to give myself another fresh start at a new project.

So what is a Project 365 anyway? It’s a commitment to take at least one photograph a day and record it as your “photo of the day.” Every year I picked and stuck to a particular theme and, as the years go on, it seems to be harder and harder to come up with something new and unique. The same struggle I find with giving gifts to loved ones that you’ve been buying for for years. I often feel like I’m running out of ideas.

Well, that is exactly why I should be doing a Project 365! The whole point is to keep my creativity sharp. Those days when there’s just nothing interesting to photograph are the days that require the most creativity. I decided that creativity itself should be this year’s theme and my goal is to really push myself every day to take a truly unique photo that I have to dig for. I’ve spent years documenting my life in one form or another and capturing moments that I wanted to remember. I used my phone to do just that and it was more about my life than my photography. This year, I’m committed to using a ‘real camera’ and I’m trying to capture things that I wouldn’t have seen if I wasn’t looking through my lens. My hope is to capture and document an alternate universe that requires deliberate intent. The biggest challenge is stopping my normal life to step into another world – the creative world that I love so much. Once I’m there, with my camera in my hand, the possibilities are endless and that is exactly where I want to spend time hanging out. The best part is that I don’t even have to leave home to do it. So far, all photos were taken right inside my house, proving that you don’t have to go far to create beauty.

To keep myself accountable I’ve decided to post my daily photos every week or so here on my blog and without any further ado, here are the first two weeks: